Method
How Jinjja or Not tests Korean products
The short version
Jinjja or Not buys every product in Korea with its own money, reads the concentration figures printed on the Korean-language label, and publishes the number in English. When a product turns out not to be buyable abroad, the affiliate link comes out and the article says so instead.
Every product is bought, not sent
Nothing on this site arrived free from a brand. Sunny Park buys each product at a Korean supermarket, an Olive Young, or online in Korea, and the receipts are hers. There is no PR list behind this site.
That will not always be true. If a brand ever sends something, the article will say gifted at the top, above the verdict, before you read a word of the assessment. The standard for the verdict does not move: if a product can't be criticised honestly, the gift isn't accepted.
The number comes off the Korean side of the box
This is the part an English-language reviewer usually cannot do. Korean cosmetics law requires a brand to print how much of an ingredient the product contains when that ingredient appears in the product name. The figure is printed in ppm or percent, on the Korean-language panel, and it is frequently missing from the English panel entirely.
So when Anua's heartleaf cleansing oil says heartleaf on the front, the Korean label says 10 ppm. When Beauty of Joseon's balm says radiance and lists rice three times, the Korean label says rice bran oil 100 ppm, rice seed water 0.97 ppm, rice extract 0.29 ppm. Jinjja or Not photographs that panel and prints the number.
A small number is not automatically a bad product, and the articles say so where it applies. The point is that the reader gets to decide with the figure in front of them.
A verdict means the product was used
- Snacks get a verdict after being eaten. Heat is rated 0–3 on a scale where Buldak original is a 3.
- Skincare gets a verdict after at least two weeks of daily use. Two weeks is stated as the limit when that's all the time there has been.
- Repurchase stamps — bought again, will buy again, situational, still testing, won't repurchase — record what was actually rebought. A repurchase is a fact; a star rating is an opinion.
- Untested products are labelled not tested by me and carry no verdict. They can still be linked, because linking and reviewing are different things.
Links come out when they don't work
Before publishing, every Amazon link is checked against a Prime-filtered Amazon US search. If that search doesn't return the product, the link is removed and the article says where the product actually sells.
As of August 2026, forty-eight product searches have been checked one by one. Twenty-one were corrected. Eleven products turned out not to be on Amazon US at all and are now marked as Korean-grocery finds — among them all five Korean Pringles flavours, three Pulmuone tteokbokki, Melon Kick and Hot Goraebap.
The Prime filter itself is deliberate. Since the United States ended de minimis relief, a seller shipping directly from Korea can leave a reader with a customs bill at the door, so listings that ship from Korea are filtered out rather than recommended.
The US version is often a different product
This comes up often enough to be part of the method. Round Lab's birch juice sunscreen is SPF 50+ PA++++ in Korea and SPF 45 in the United States — a reformulation the brand states is exclusive to the US. BIOHEAL BOH's cleanser is a 160ml foam in Korea and a bubble pump on Amazon US. Orion's Goraebap is sold abroad as Marine Boy, which is why searching the Korean name returns nothing.
When the Korean product and the exported product differ, both are described, so a reader knows which one is arriving.
What this site will not do
- No AI-generated product photographs. Product and evidence photos are Sunny Park's own, watermarked.
- No invented statistics, and no figures without a source.
- No verdict on a product that hasn't been used.
- No coverage of territorial or historical disputes. Product names are used as printed; the disputes themselves are out of scope.
Questions about the method
Does Jinjja or Not buy the products it reviews?
Yes. Every product with a verdict on this site was bought by Sunny Park in Korea with her own money. Nothing on the site has been sent free by a brand. If that ever changes, the article will say so at the top before you read a word of the verdict.
What does 'reading the Korean label' actually mean?
Korean cosmetics law requires a brand to print how much of an ingredient is in the product when that ingredient is named in the product name. Those figures appear on the Korean-language side of the packaging in ppm or percent, and they are usually absent from the English side. Jinjja or Not photographs that panel and reports the number.
Why does Jinjja or Not sometimes remove an Amazon link?
Because the link would not work. Before publishing, each product is checked against a Prime-filtered Amazon US search. If the search does not return that product, the link is taken out and the article says where the product actually sells instead. As of August 2026, eleven products on this site are marked as Korean-grocery finds rather than Amazon buys.
How does Jinjja or Not decide a verdict?
Snacks get a verdict after being eaten. Skincare gets a verdict after at least two weeks of daily use, and the repurchase stamps — bought again, will buy again, situational, still testing — record what was actually rebought rather than a star rating. A product nobody has used yet is labelled 'not tested by me' and carries no verdict.
Is Jinjja or Not written by AI?
The English is written with AI assistance, because Sunny Park is a Korean speaker writing for an English-speaking audience. The purchases, the photographs, the label readings and every verdict are hers. No product is described as tested unless she has used it, and no photograph on the site is AI-generated — product photos are her own, watermarked.